


Silver Secrets

by AboutBatman (MistyDawn)



Series: Omega Bruce and Barry/Justice League Pack [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Justice League - All Media Types, The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha Clark Kent, Alpha Diana (Wonder Woman), Alpha Hal Jordan, Alpha J'onn J'onzz, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Anxiety, Barry Allen Has a Big Heart, Bruce Wayne Needs a Hug, Bruce is Shy, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Omega Barry Allen, Omega Bruce Wayne, Omega/Omega, Porn with Feelings, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:08:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27632537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistyDawn/pseuds/AboutBatman
Summary: Barry swallowed the lump in his throat. Why was he so nervous about this? This was Bruce, his friend, a man that he had known for years. “Would you be free later? We were thinking of going out for dinner and we’d love if you could come.”Icy blue eyes snapped up to Barry’s for a split second before darting away. “I’m… I’m not sure if I’ll have time.”Barry is the only omega in the Justice League pack. Even though Bruce is part of the team, the secretive man prefers to keep his distance and refuses to become part of their pack. This leads the others to feel like their pack can never be complete until the final team member finally embraces them. However, things take a turn when a new threat from off-world forces the Justice League to band together to overcome new challenges— and to unravel the secrets of their teammate's past.
Relationships: Barry Allen/Bruce Wayne, Barry Allen/Clark Kent, Barry Allen/Diana (Wonder Woman), Barry Allen/Hal Jordan, Barry Allen/J'onn J'onzz, Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne, Diana (Wonder Woman)/Bruce Wayne, Hal Jordan/Bruce Wayne, J'onn J'onzz/Bruce Wayne
Series: Omega Bruce and Barry/Justice League Pack [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2020406
Comments: 132
Kudos: 431





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So finally I am starting the prequel to Double Trouble! It's been like 9 months but better late then never!

They trudged into the locker room on the watchtower. It was a big room, with sleek metal benches and open lockers where they could set their various weapons and gadgets as they showered. Fatigue was plain on all of their faces and even Barry elected to walk with the others at a normal pace rather than speed ahead.

“I think that’s a winner for the slimiest mission yet,” Hal said as he wiped a handful of purple sludge off his face.

They were covered head to toe in the purple slime. Namely, because they had just finished fighting a giant slime monster in the heart of Central City. It clung to every available surface and had already started to dry in sticky clumps all over their clothes and skin. 

Clark ran a hand over his house of El symbol to dislodge the slime that clung there. “For once Hal, I think you’re right.”

“Ugh. Why is it always my city that attracts the goo monsters?” Barry lamented as he pushed back his face mask. “Either their slime makes it impossible to run fast, or it’s so slippery that I skid through it and end up on the other side of the state.”

Diana wound her lasso around a hook and let it hang from her locker. “Themyscira was blessed to be in the middle of the ocean. I had not seen nor heard of a ‘goo monster’ before I came to the mainland.”

“Metropolis sometimes gets them. Or else Toyman makes one of those giant Nickelodeon slime guns that squirts green acidic goo,” Clark said as he removed his cape and carefully bundled it into the laundry shoot. “Now _that’s_ a difficult clean-up.”

J’onn had a locker like the others, but he rarely used it. He stood straight and morphed his ‘clothes’ back into his body so that he stood naked beside them. “There were many non-solid creatures on Mars. The lack of a solid form allowed them many advantages in biological competition.”

Hal’s ring usually protected him from most outside contaminants, but as his green costume faded away to reveal his flight suit, it became apparent that he had not been spared from the goo. “Dammit. I’m gonna have to steal a flight suit off someone for the test flight tomorrow.”

“Don’t you have extras?” Clark asked as he pulled off a slime-filled boot.

Hal unzipped the top of his Ferris Aircraft uniform and shrugged the soiled fabric over his shoulders. “I do! I just haven’t gotten around to cleaning them yet.”

He worked the flight suit off and joined J’onn in being naked. Then he threw it into the laundry shoot as if he were playing basketball. “There’s loads of goo aliens in space. A few of them are even Green Lanterns, they aren’t very talkative, but you definitely want them on our side in a firefight.” 

Diana was the next to get fully naked followed by Clark.

J’onn phased through the wall into the shower room and Clark and Diana followed him through the left side door.

“Need help with that, Barry?” Hal asked as he slid up behind the omega.

Barry sighed. “My zip is stuck again.”

Hal rested a hand on the fabric of Flash’s suit and used the other to gently tug the zip down. He looked up over Barry’s shoulder to where Batman was cleaning purple goop off his utility belt. “What about you, Spooky? Many sentient balls of slime in Gotham?”

Batman grunted. “No. Thankfully goo isn’t really Gotham’s style.”

Barry squeezed himself out of his Flash suit. He couldn’t help but notice that yet again Bruce was the only member of the League that was still fully clothed. “Aren’t you going to shower?”

Bruce spared a glance his way before resuming his cleaning. He nodded at the door on the right. “I will.”

Disappointment welled in Barry’s chest. He tried to shake it off, after all, it was unwarranted. The shower room on the left, the big one, was used by most of the League while the one on the right was a single stall that Batman usually slinked off too. Barry really should have stopped getting his hopes up by now. Showering together was a pack activity, something to do together after a battle to strengthen the bonds between each other, and at the end of the day, Batman wasn’t pack.

Not in the ways that mattered anyway. Barry was the only omega, the rest, bar beta Bruce, were all of his alphas. With them, it had been easy. When they had first banded together to start the Justice League, it had seemed intuitive to strengthen the team and start a real pack. Once they were bonded, their team dynamic became more efficient. Before they had been a good team, but after mating, they had become a well-oiled machine unrivalled by any other group in the solar system.

Bruce though, he had always hung back. Barry had spent many nights lying awake agonising over all the possible reasons why Bruce wouldn’t want to take the extra step and become a part of their family. Was he, as a singular omega, not good enough? Even as a beta, Bruce Wayne had plenty of beautiful omegas throwing themselves at him every time he showed himself in public. So why would he settle for one measly omega when he could have fifty at a time?

The others had done their best to dissuade those thoughts in Barry. They had insisted that was just how Bruce was, that he didn’t want a pack— couldn’t want one after what had happened with his parents.

Barry still had to try though. Maybe one day Bruce would decide he wanted to be a part of a family again. Barry wanted to make sure the man knew where to turn when that day came. “You can come in with us you know. We won’t bite.”

Bruce levelled him with a white-lensed glare.

Barry put his hands up defensively. “No pun intended!

Hal snickered and looked from Barry to Bruce. “Unless biting is wanted. In that case, I think I could volunteer—”

Barry jabbed the alpha in the stomach to shut him up. 

Bruce set his belt into his locker and let down his cowl. “Go ahead without me.”

Barry hoped the smell of the slime was pungent enough to hide the disappointment in his scent from Hal. “Oh, uh… okay. We’ll see you in a bit then.”

He and the alpha left Bruce alone in the locker room as they entered the large communal shower. The other three alphas were already obscured by the thick fog of hot steam that rolled off the water spray.

Clark threw Barry and Hal sponges to scrub the goo off of their skin. “He’s not coming?”

Hal shook his head and walked over to one of the shelves holding the various forms of soap. “When does he ever?”

There were hums of agreement and the starting of a conversation as Barry spread body wash on his sponge and started to scrub off the patches of dried slime that clung to his skin. He let the words wash over him, only half listening as the rest of the pack talked amongst themselves.

Barry closed his eyes and leant his head against the tiled wall. Moments later, J’onn extended a limb to rub shampoo into his blond hair. “May I ask what is bothering you?”

Barry blinked open an eye to look at the green alien. “Nothing.” He shrugged, “It’s stupid really.”

J’onn’s lip downturned slightly. “I can feel your unhappiness. If something has bothered you, I would not call it stupid.”

Hal appeared beside him, rubbing shampoo into his own hair in a desperate attempt to dislodge the purple goo. “What’s up, Barry? Something upset you?”

Barry sighed as he noticed his other two alphas, Diana and Clark, had now zoned into the conversation. Now he had to tell them, or they’d be worrying all day. “It’s just… ugh, it’s stupid.”

Diana walked out from under the shower spray she was bathing at. “Go ahead, omega. We promise to listen to your woes with open ears.” Her black locks of hair were flowing down over her chest, somehow they were completely devoid of slime, unlike the considerably shorter strands of hair on top of Hal’s head. 

Barry ducked his head under the water spray to rid his hair of the soap foam. “I just wish Bruce would spend more time with us. I get that he doesn’t want to be part of the pack, but I would like to spend more time with him outside of fighting.”

Clark put a hand on his shoulder. “That’s not stupid, Barry. Bruce is our friend. We all love him and wish he would spend more time with us.”

Diana nodded. “He may not be our pack member, but he is our shield brother, and it is normal to wish to continue the merriment outside of battle.” 

J’onn was silent for a moment. “Perhaps he felt as if he would be intruding on our pack business by entering the showers with us.”

Hal raised an eyebrow. “He’s seen us naked plenty of time. For Oa’s sake, he had to give my taint stitches a few weeks ago after the barbed wire incident.”

The Martian didn’t make any body movements, no shrugging, no raised eyebrows— he merely blinked a red-eyed gaze at the other inhabitants of the room. “Despite what the tabloids would have the world believe, we all know that Bruce Wayne is a man that highly values privacy.”

Diana nodded in thought. “Maybe a group activity would do him good. Gods know Bruce works himself to the bone. Even if he does not want to partake in the more intimate intricacies of our pack, perhaps we could offer him a respite to the madness of his life?”

Bruce did work too much. Every time Barry saw him, he was working on a new project as Bruce or a new case as Batman. The man overworked himself to exhaustion and had no one but his butler to fall back on at the end of the day. He had no pack, no comfort— did he even rest, or did he just pass out when he couldn’t go on anymore and then get up the next day and do it all again?

Hal let out a sound of triumph mixed with pain as he pulled the final glob of goo from his hair. “I’m free for the rest of the night. We could go out for dinner?”

Barry looked around the others as they nodded. “Great! I’ll say to him.”

He sped through the rest of his shower and made it back into the locker room wrapped in a fluffy towel just as Bruce was clicking on his utility belt. He looked completely clean, his hair was dry and shone healthily, and even his Batman suit was completely free of any signs of slime. Barry took a look closer at the armour, it was one of the spare sets Bruce kept on the tower— which meant he wasn’t planning on sticking around for the automated bots to clean the other Batman suit. 

Diana stepped out of the shower room, naked as the day she was born, and strode over to her locker. “Are you leaving so soon, Bruce?”

Bruce grunted as he put on his gloves. “I’ve already spent too long away from Gotham.”

Barry swallowed the lump in his throat. Why was he so nervous about this? This was Bruce, his friend, a man that he had known for years. “Would you be free later? We were thinking of going out for dinner and we’d love if you could come.”

Icy blue eyes snapped up to Barry’s for a split second before darting away. “I’m… I’m not sure if I’ll have time.”

“Oh, well, you could come for a little while if you wanted. You don’t have to spend the whole night with us if you’re busy,” Barry said.

Bruce looked shifty. He shook his head and put on his cowl. “No. I have business in Gotham. After that, I have patrol.”

Barry’s shoulders fell in disappointment. It was no secret that Bruce had always kept everyone at arm’s length. Barry supposed he was secretive by nature, living such a dangerous lifestyle would do that to someone. Especially when they were a public figure. But would it really hurt the guy to spend _some_ time with them?

Diana put a comforting hand on his shoulder and looked at Bruce as he attempted to slip out the door. “Perhaps another time?”

Batman paused on the door’s threshold. “Perhaps,” he said before disappearing into the hallway with a snap of his cape. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said in the top notes, it been nearly 9 months since I wrote Double Trouble and i'm so excited to be finally writing more for this series. The reason why it took so long to update was because I had to put this wip on hold for a few months while I planned and wrote my (superbat flavoured) DCU Big Bang fic [Stay Awake with Me!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27276001/chapters/66639604)
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! Comments and kudos are welcome <3
> 
> Come see me on my Tumblr [aboutbatman!](https://aboutbatman.tumblr.com/)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now we get to see a little bit of Bruce's POV!
> 
> I meant to upload this yesterday but I was so tired when I got home from work that I couldn't. So here it is a day late!

He was always the first there. Even though he lived in Gotham and had to drive to the zeta tube access point and then walk to the meeting room, he was always first. The others had lives too of course, but more often than not he could find the entire pack on the Watchtower rather than in their civilian dwellings.

Batman gave the presentation for the meeting another once over but, as expected, it was still the same as when he had checked it a few minutes ago. Crime reports, statistical data on natural disasters, various graphs and infographics— it all lay perfectly ordered where it waited on the screen.

Bruce sighed and glanced at the time. It was 18:35 which made them five minutes late, but then coupled with the fact that Bruce always arrived early, meant that he had been sitting alone at the Justice League’s meeting table for twenty minutes.

He looked up at the soft sound of J’onn phasing through the wall. The Martian inclined his head in a greeting nod and took his place two seats away from where Bruce sat. “Greetings, Batman. The others will join us shortly.”

Bruce hummed a reply as the pair waited. If Bruce was always first, then Martian Manhunter was always second. His ability to go intangible always allowed him to sink through the infrastructure of the tower to his destination rather than be confined to the preset routes of the corridors.

They didn’t have to wait long for the signs of the others imminent arrival to make themselves apparent. Noise filtered through the hallways, growing in volume until the rest of the group pushed through the steel doors at the front of the room.

They were laughing about something, an inside joke Bruce surmised, and each of their faces held an easy smile. Barry was at the centre of the group, the centre of attention as each of his alphas laughed along with the joke. Bruce’s eyes trailed down to Hal's arm carelessly thrown over Barry’s shoulders. It looked like such a carefree touch, like it had been second nature for Hal to touch him like that; no need for extensive thought beforehand.

“You’re late,” he said.

All eyes snapped to Batman. “Sorry, Bruce! We got caught up with something,” Clark explained.

Diana slid into her seat on Bruce’s left. “Apologies, we seemed to lose track of time.” Her eyes flicked across the table to J’onn’s and a small smile graced her lips. “We did not intend to keep you waiting, Bruce.”

Hal took his seat on Diana’s other side, then Barry between Hal and J’onn so that he directly faced Bruce. Finally, Clark sat down on Bruce’s other side; in the empty seat between him and J’onn.

Hal leant back in his chair as he stretched his arms above his head. “I’m sure Spooky doesn’t mind that he had to wait a few extra minutes. You know how he is with these things, he likes to get in first and make sure everything is up to his standards— aka perfect. Besides, what we were doing was very important.”

Bruce didn’t need them to enlighten him. He could smell exactly what they had been doing before coming to the meeting. His sensitive omega nose could detect every pheromone— pheromones that may be subtle to the other designations— in high definition. Sex permeated the air, it rolled off the alphas in waves and slinked its way across the table to curl under Bruce’s nose and settle somewhere deep in his belly.

Barry’s sweet omega scent was in there too, soft and alluring, it slipped alongside the other scents to quicken Bruce’s heartbeat. Bruce swallowed the saliva in his mouth and cleared his throat in an effort to stave off the instincts that threatened to rear up. “Are we ready to start the meeting?”

Heads nodded their assent and Bruce stood to deliver the first portion of the report. It was relatively boring, just a roundup of the major supervillain crimes in the last three months, and then the reports on their progress in prison, or in the event that they weren’t caught, a list of possible sightings.

He finished his segment and retook his seat as Clark stood to deliver the natural disaster report. It wasn’t boring information per say, but Bruce had heard it all before, in fact, he had compiled most of the original mission reports. Still, it was a useful tactic to go over the missions every once in a while to keep the details fresh in their heads. But really, Bruce couldn’t blame the others for wanting to have an orgy rather than come to the meeting.

He let his thoughts wander as Clark’s smooth voice washed over him. He glanced around the table and found that Hal also looked zoned out. He was sure the pack would have preferred not to have been interrupted in favour of a recap meeting. He was sure they would rather be back on their personal floor, in each-other’s arms, rather than entertaining Batman in another one of his boring meetings.

Clark raised an arm to point at the wide screen behind him as he talked. The man was clearly pointing to highlight whatever was being shown in the video, but Bruce’s eyes instead found themselves transfixed on the bulging bicep that strained under the blue material of the Superman suit. The muscles moved and rippled with each wave of Clark’s arm, almost hypnotising as Bruce thought about how nice it would be for those arms to pin him to the floor and—

_Wait, what?_

Bruce shook his head to rid himself of the inappropriate thoughts and found that Barry’s eyes were on him. The man gave a questioning tilt of his head and Bruce looked away immediately, instead choosing to face Clark’s presentation more fully.

He sat ramrod straight, back muscles tense as he felt Barry’s eyes bore into the back of his head. Had his scent blockers failed? Could they smell him? Bruce subtly dipped his nose slightly so that he could scent himself. No, no scent to worry about, the blockers he religiously doused himself in everyday were still hiding the rich omega pheromones that constantly threatened to seep from his pores.

If they couldn’t smell him, then why was Barry staring so intently? Was it that obvious that his thoughts weren’t on the meeting, that they were on… something else entirely?

Bruce shuffled in his seat and resolved to shove down the slight arousal that nagged at him. It was getting harder these days to be around the pack, especially when they smelled like they did.

In the past it had been easy. He’d been doing it his whole life, dampening his instincts with discipline and shoving down any inklings of attraction with sheer force of will. Faced with a new team of strangers, all of which were dangerous and powerful, it had been easy to let his suspicion and worry take over to help keep his distance from them. He had always intended for it to be a professional relationship, there was never meant to be entanglements or conflicting feelings.

But, to his surprise, the team had become his friends. One by one they had earned his trust and proved to him that they weren’t tyrants bidding their time until they could use their considerable power to take over the world. And ever so slowly, without him noticing, that had been when the problems had started. The alpha scents that had once failed to faze him, the ones that had been assaulting his nose for years, now they effortlessly reached through his barriers because his mind recognised that the alphas they were coming from were _safe._

The years of training, the years of keeping every single instinct and omega behaviour in check, they were all being wasted as the pack had unknowingly pierced through the carefully constructed layers of shielding Bruce had wrapped his true self in.

So, Bruce had done the only thing he knew how to do; he pulled away and became more distant, desperate for a reprieve from the onslaught on his senses. That meant minimal touching outside of necessity, low-contact outside of missions, and as much of a detached demeanour as he could muster— all in an attempt to slow the degradation of the protective walls that were the last thing between him and the world finding out his true designation.

However, even with all of his efforts, there were still ‘incidents’ as Bruce called them. Moments where his careful control lapsed. Moments like today when he had been caught off guard by the scents of their mating. Moments that made his mouth water at the thought of them taking him into their arms and bending him over the meeting table, then each of them taking turns as they—

_Shit._

He was doing it again.

Bruce shifted uncomfortably in his seat and mentally counted the number of days until his next dose of suppressants. _Six days._ That meant he shouldn’t be producing too much omega pheromones, or slick for that matter. He glanced up around the table to see if anyone had noticed his second lapse in attention, but was slightly shocked when he found Superman back in his seat and Diana at the front. How long exactly had he been distracted?

“Batman?”

Bruce whipped his head around to where Hal had spoken. “What?”

Hal smirked. “Not paying attention? Not a bit like you, Spooky.”

Bruce pursed his lips. “Just spit it out, Lantern.”

Wonder Woman cleared her throat from where she stood in front of the screen wall. “I was asking if everyone was agreeable with the plan for the Bialya conference with the UN in two weeks?”

Bruce’s eyes flicked to the screen displaying a blueprint of the conference hall, including the positions they each would take to maximise surveillance. “Yes, that looks fine.”

Diana nodded and shared a brief glance with Barry. It seemed his daydreams hadn’t gone unnoticed after all. “Good,” she said. “I think that concludes this meeting. Any other business before we adjourn?”

When no one offered anything, the League members began to stand. Barry walked over to Diana as she began to shut down the computer and the two began a low conversation. Hal stretched and yawned as Clark circled the table to push in the vacant chairs.

J’onn caught Bruce’s eye. He turned away from the Martian immediately, not wanting to have to answer any questions that the man may have. Bruce knew J’onn wouldn’t listen to his thoughts without consent, so at least he would be saved the embarrassment of his colleague seeing exactly what Bruce had been thinking. Especially because he’d been thinking of what J’onn would look like naked.

As Bruce walked swiftly towards the exit, he could feel the hairs at the base of his neck begin to prickle at the sensation of being watched.

“Batman!”

Bruce’s jaw tensed, he needed to get home and out of this restrictive Batsuit as soon as possible. He turned reluctantly to find Clark jogging up to him. “Hey, we were thinking of having a movie night later. Would you like to join us? We could _—_ “

_Yes._

“No.”

He couldn’t be around them like that right now. Not with the way things were.

Clark looked slightly crestfallen, like Bruce had just torn apart his hopes and dreams, but he quickly covered it up by looking Bruce in the eyes earnestly. “Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find us.”

Bruce gave him a curt nod and turned on his heel to continue his hurried walk toward the zeta-tube bay. The others would go to the living-quarters level. They’d curl up with each other on plush seats and spend the night watching movies and eating popcorn. And what would he do? He would go home to Gotham, to his too-large manor, and wait until nightfall so that he could beat his fists bloody.

It was pathetic really, his need to hide away. But if he didn’t then they would find out his dirty little secret. And then what would he do?

_Then what would they do?_

That _was_ the question wasn’t it? What would they do once they found out Bruce had lied to them these past few years? After all, it wasn’t as though he’d just been lying to them— he’d been lying to the entire world. He’d been lying ever since his parents died and he was suddenly left alone and vulnerable. It had been so long since he’d been allowed to be his true self that he barely remembered what it was like. Better to continue the fake life, safe in the knowledge that if no one but him and Alfred knew, then there was no one that could hurt him.

So the secret had to stay a secret, and if he wanted to continue to be a part of this team, then he would need to find stronger suppressants— ones that his body wasn’t yet accustomed to. Suppressants that would be able to temper his natural instincts and return him to his life in secrecy.

Red flashed before Bruce’s eyes as the emergency lights in the ceiling activated at the same time as the alarms started blaring.

The disembodied voice of the central computer rang out over the speakers, “Civilian attack by unidentifiable source. Justice League intervention recommended.”

Bruce sighed. Moments later Barry appeared beside him with a lopsided grin on his face. “Looks like we’re up, B.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Comments and kudos are welcome <3
> 
> Come see me on my Tumblr [aboutbatman!](https://aboutbatman.tumblr.com/)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally finished this chapter! You can blame the action for it being late lol. 
> 
> Enjoy!

\---

“Do we know what we are dealing with?” Diana asked over comms.

Hal spun in a circle as he shot through the air alongside the invisible jet that carried the rest of his team. “Intel was hazy. All we know is that there is an attack on civilians in Johannesburg,” he said.

Batman’s burly voice crackled into his ear, “Whatever it is has attacked the cities electricity grid. All we have to work off are a few blurry images the power station CCTV managed to capture before they went down.”

Hal’s ring vibrated very slightly to inform him that it had just received an image transfer. He brought his arm close to his face as it projected the CCTV footage. The image moves like a gif, repeating in a loop that shows a large shape firing something into one of the generators before they blow up.

He shut the image off and flew in close to the jet so that he had a direct line of sight to his team members that sat inside it. “Are we thinking military? Mercenary?”

“Could be,” Clark said. “Whatever it was, it wasn’t a regular helicopter or jet, so they would need a big budget to finance something like that.”

“Could be supervillain related,” J’onn chimed in.

Batman grunted his agreement as Diana banked the plane to the right and started her descent. “ETA five minutes. We should be nearing the centre of the attacks now,” she said.

Hal peeled away from the plane and made his way down under the clouds. It was early morning, the sunrays only beginning to peek over the horizon. The sprawling cityscape below them should have been alight with life, but instead, it was completely dark and empty as it’s residents hid inside their homes.

“What’s the game plan?” Barry asked.

Bruce’s voice rang out over the comms again, “We need to find the attackers and bring them down. But our top priority is civilian safety, Green Lantern and Superman, you assess the aircraft while the rest of us get feet on the ground and try to get people to safety.”

Hal did his best imitation of a mock salute. “Aye, aye, Captain.” He chuckled to himself after he said it, not needing to look through the window to know that Bruce was giving him the stink eye.

“Diana, bring us closer to the cluster of apartment buildings there.” Clark pointed at a few tall buildings that had smoke rising up from behind them. “I can hear a commotion.”

Wonder Woman steered the jet closer. “I’m activating the autopilot. Flash you’re with me, Hal can you take Bruce to the ground?”

“Copy that.” Hal watched as the back hatch of the jet opened. Martian Manhunter floated down towards the streets as Superman shot straight at the dark plumes of smoke. Diana scooped Barry into her arms and turned to say a final word to Batman before she stepped off the plane and descended to the ground after J’onn.

Hal flew in closer to match the jets speed so that he could hover in front of Bruce. “And then there were two,” he said with a grin.

Bruce ignored him in favour of looking through a pair of binoculars. “The smoke cover is making it hard to see, but it seems to be centred around the main train station.”

Hal conjured a comically large telescope with his ring so that he could peer down at the ground. The smoke was thick, billowing out from numerous buildings, and he could see throngs of scared commuters stumbling through the haze as they attempted to get away from something. “Shit.” He waved away the telescope and formed a green bubble around Batman without preamble. “Time to get this show on the road.”

He knew Bruce hated the bubbles, in the past likening it to being stuck in a hamster ball, but time was of the essence. He knew Bruce might be a little miffed, but the man never complained when people’s lives were in danger. Hal descended as fast as he could without jostling Bruce too much and landed in the middle of a bustling street.

Up by the jet they hadn’t been able to hear, but now the screams of terrified people and the crash of explosions permeated the air. Hal landed beside an overturned car covered in scorch marks and released Bruce from his bubble. “Jesus, what the fuck is happening?”

Bruce looked around, scanning the surrounding buildings and looking towards the direction of the smoke— and coincidentally the direction everyone was running from. “I don’t know. Find Superman and try and put out some of the fires to get the smoke cleared. If the hovercraft is causing this, we need to be able to see it coming.”

There was a red blur and then Flash stood in front of them. “Bats, we need your help. There’s a few separate groups of civilians trapped in the underground train tunnels.”

Bruce glanced back at Hal as Barry took hold of his arm. “The fires first. If you see anything we’ll be on comms.”

Hal nodded and rose into the air milliseconds after Batman and Flash disappeared in a burst of speed. He turned mid-air and managed to catch a glimpse of red and blue through the thick smoke. He followed after it, travelling deeper into the centre of the attack until he finally caught up as Clark was prying open a mangled shop shutter to let out some trapped civilians.

Green Lantern sent out a large green hand to clear away some debris so that the people could scramble out of the shop and get to safety. “Have you seen anything yet?”

Clark shook his head and helped a middle-aged man get out of the building. “No. But there’s definitely something lurking about. I can hear it’s engines but whatever it is, it’s moving too fast to pinpoint its exact location.”

“I’m going to see if I can stop any of these fires. If I see anything, I’ll tell you.”

There was a battering of hands on metal as more people attempted to get free of their building, clearly, the lack of electricity had caused some doors to lock people into buildings. Clark turned his head their way. “I’ll work on getting people free. After I’m done I’ll do an aerial scan to see if I can find this thing.”

Hal flew into the air and held his ring ahead of him. He tried scanning for any aircraft but nothing came up except for a thermal warning to his left. He followed the ring’s prompts to the source of some of the smoke which turned out to be the burning eighteenth floor of a skyrise. Flames licked up the side of the building as they poured out of the massive hole that had been blasted into the side.

Hal rushed forward and conjured a large green fire extinguisher to try and smother some of the fire. It worked; the flames retreated as he starved them of oxygen, and as they died down, they revealed the true extent of the damage. Hal looked down to see chunks of rebar and concrete on the street below, likely put there by something striking the building. The inside of the floor was too scorched to accurately find anything by sight, but the fact that it had caught on fire at all suggested an explosion.

Had a missile been fired? He scanned the wreckage, but the ring came up negative for evidence of military-grade weapons. He did, however, find a particularly strange energy signature.

Hal activated his comms, “Guys, I think we may have a problem.”

“What have you got, Lantern?” Diana queried.

“My ring is picking up plasma weapon energy signatures on some of the damaged buildings.” Hal swept his green scanning light over more of the wreckage. “These aren’t normal energy readings that you’d find on Earth, almost as if—”

“—I’ve got eyes on our mystery aircraft,” Superman said urgetly. The comm cut out briefly as Clark moved at super-speed, “Rao! It’s fast!”

Hal dropped his hand and quickly flew out of the damaged building into the slightly clearer air. There was still smoke up ahead from the other fires, but at least he had managed to stop some of it from obscuring his view. “Supes, where are you?”

“I’m further on than you, maybe five or six blocks from where we last met.” There was a flash of purple light and a strange explosive sound as a plasma shot was fired up ahead. “Ah! They’re shooting at me!”

“I see you! I’m coming.” Hal rose up over the office block to catch a glimpse of something large and bulky disappearing into a thick plume of smoke between two buildings. The smoke, combined with the low light of dawn, meant that he couldn’t make out many details other than it was big and moved fast.

As he dived down from his vantage point J’onn’s voice came over the comms. “We have nearly completed the evacuation of the train tunnels. Wonder Woman and I will leave the main train station to Flash and Batman whilst we will come and assist you two.”

“Affirmative,” Hal said as he entered the thick smoke. He immediately had to conjure a breathing mask over his nose and mouth, unable to go much further into the cloying soot without it. He spun in the air, scanning every direction for any movement that might give the aircraft's position away.

There was a swirl of smoke to his left and Hal let out an energy black from his ring.

“Hey! It’s me!” Clark said as he emerged from the smoke rubbing the side of his torso.

Hal lowered his arm and gave the other man a bashful grimace. “Sorry, Supes. I thought you were the spaceship.”

“Spaceship? So, it’s definitely extra-terrestrial?”

Hal flicked his fingers to display a reading map of his ring scan. “See those weird lines on the graph? They’re from an alien hyperdrive. A pretty fast one if those numbers are anything to go by.”

Clark nodded. They’d dealt with aliens before, Lobo the bounty hunter was a relatively familiar face on Earth counting by the number of times he’d showed up to wreak havoc. Then there was Clark and J’onn who weren’t exactly from Earth either. Plus, minus the Ferris Airways staff, most of Hal’s co-workers were aliens. Aliens were a regular occurrence in their lives, however, an unprovoked attack on a planet that was publicly protected by the Justice League was something they didn’t deal with that often.

Hal turned his comm on so that he could speak to the entire team. “We need to work out why they’re here. Something about all of this isn’t sitting right with me.”

“Agreed. Their attack pattern seems like more of a distraction rather than an attempt to do real damage,” Batman said.

“A distraction? What business could they possibly have here?” Diana asked.

“Maybe they want to fight us?” Barry mused. “The last few times aliens have shown up, it’s because they heard about our team and they wanted to test our strength.”

“I don’t know. Every time I get close to them, they fly away and hide between the buildings and smoke cover,” Clark said. “If they wanted to fight us, surely they wouldn’t run away.”

There was a moment of contemplative silence before Batman’s gravelly tones broke out over the speakers in their ears, “They are trying to bide time. Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter, are you out of the train tunnels yet?”

J’onn replied, “Yes. We are both heading towards the remaining smoke now.”

Bruce hummed in thought. “Superman and Wonder Woman, work on getting the smoke cleared. Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter, you two hunt this thing down and get it grounded.”

“And me and B will finish up with getting the civilians to safety!” Barry added cheerfully.

“On it,” Hal said. He gave Clark a nod as the two separated and went in different directions; Superman towards the nearest smouldering building, and Hal deeper into the smoke.

He ducked through the dense cityscape, a bright green thread of light zig-zagging through the city streets as he searched for their unwanted guests. Everywhere he looked seemed to be covered in smoke. If he had to guess, Hal would say at least twenty to thirty entire blocks were engulfed in it, with buildings set alight in strategic places so that the smoke would travel further.

Hal swooped down lower to the ground and began to make out the noise of the bustling city below. The air was filled with screams and the sound of sirens, the emergency services scrambling to protect their citizens from the unseen threat.

Hal activated a direct line to J’onn. “Any luck?”

“No. I am currently searching the Southern end of the smoke patch, but it is difficult to distinguish so many minds. It’s like the entire city is projecting panic, I can’t parse it enough to locate the aliens.”

Hal thought for a moment as he looped around a tall office building and headed further North. “They could have shielding on their ship that makes it difficult to get a read on them.”

“I will take that into consideration,” J’onn replied.

Hal shut off his comm and dipped lower. The smoke wasn’t as thick this close to the streets, but like many of the other blocks this close to the centre of the city, it was built up high enough that the sun rays of dawn weren’t enough to brighten the street below without the aid of the lights of the buildings around it. Which of course, were currently dark due to the lack of electricity.

The only reason he was able to see the dark silhouette of the ship was because of the red and blue flashing lights of a fire engine as it sped on the road below. Hal let off an energy blast from his ring and shot after the ship as it attempted to out-manoeuvre him. “Guys, I found it! I’m in pursuit.”

“Where are you?” J’onn asked.

Hal twisted his head to the side and attempted to read the street names as they blurred past. “Uh, North East, near the train station.”

“I’m near there. I’ll try and find you, Green Lantern,” Diana said.

Hal followed close on its heel, able to catch better glimpses of the fast ship as it weaved through the city in a mad dash to get him off its tail. It was a sleek vessel, made of dark metal that was almost black, and it had a triangular hull offset by two graceful wing-like structures that curved into wicked points. Neon orange accents framed parts of the ship and the plasma cannons nestled under the wings glowed a faint purple which signified they were fully charged and armed.

Hal put on a burst of speed and rocketed forward, bringing a comically large green fly swatter down through the smoke so that he could bash it against the side of the ship. It missed by inches, the spacecraft weaving out of the way at the last second and dipping down to fly around a tall block of flats.

It fired a blast of energy at him and Hal grunted as the hastily thrown up shield took the brunt of the damage. “Diana, I’m going to need you to get ahead of it somehow. We need to find a way to block off its escape.”

“Try and lead it back down south. I’ll be waiting,” she said.

“You got it, Princess.” Hal constructed a large green butterfly net and swiped it through the air at the ship. It had the desired effect of causing the spacecraft to turn and head away from him in an attempt to dodge. He followed it close behind and fired a few stray ring blasts at the wings when it looked like the ship would veer off the course he had set it on.

Diana’s voice broke through Hal’s concentration, “Me and Martian Manhunter are in position.”

“Get ready. We’re coming in hot,” he warned.

A split second before impact, the golden glow of Wonder Woman’s lasso lit up as it stretched from building to building across the street. The nose of the ship snagged on it and the entire spacecraft flipped in mid-air.

J’onn pounced on it from his hiding spot and started prying one of the plasma cannons off of the hull with his elongated claw-like hands. Diana twirled her lasso in the air and looped it around a wing then she landed on the roof of an apartment building and planted her feet as she attempted to reel the ship in.

“I’ll get the other side!” Hal shouted as he landed on the opposite roof and formed his own lasso to catch on the other wing.

He gritted his teeth and funnelled as much willpower as he could muster into keeping the ship in place. Its engines changed in pitch as they ramped up the power, the ship putting more force into its escape attempt.

Hal let out a groan of exertion as his feet were dragged through the stones on the roof and closer to the roof’s edge. His muscles screamed in protest as he attempted to keep hold of his lasso, but he knew they needed to do something quick as he was no match for the hyperdrive powered machine he was fighting against.

“Ah!” he yelled as part of his lasso slipped from his grip and he jerked forward. “Wonder Woman, I don’t know how long I can hold this!”

The Amazonian looked to be in a similar situation as she strained against the power of the engines. “Hold fast! We just need—”

There was a loud scrape of metal as J’onn finally ripped off the plasma cannon he had been working on. They both watched as he turned to a second, only for it to swivel sideways and blast him in the face.

“Manhunter!” Diana screamed as J’onn went hurtling to the street below.

Diana let go of her lasso and jumped after him. Hal was able to glimpse her catching him moments before he was yanked forward and across the sky by the ship. With the power of Wonder Woman no longer holding it still, Hal hadn’t been enough, and the aliens had taken their chance to rip across the sky.

Hal, who was still clutching his glowing green lasso, was brought along for the ride. The ship kicked on a burst of speed and initiated a series of loops and harsh manoeuvres until Hal was eventually bucked off like an unlucky bull rider and slammed into the side of a building.

He slid down the windows and landed on an outcropping just in time to see another ship, of similar colours but a different smaller design, peel off from the bigger ship.

Suddenly hands were on him and Superman was helping him to his feet.

“Are you okay?” Clark asked.

Hal coughed as he choked on the smoke. It was thinner now that Superman had doused most of the fires, but it still tickled the back of his throat and invaded his nose because his will had slipped and he had accidentally stopped conjuring his breathing mask.

He nodded and reinstated his mask. “Yep, right as rain.” Hal rose back into the air alongside Superman. “We need to find that ship. There’s a smaller one too, but I’m going to need your help taking the big one down.”

“Justice League, come in,” Clark said tensely.

“Flash here,” Barry chirped.

“Green Lantern and I are going after the main spaceship, there’s a second smaller one, can the rest of you keep your eyes peeled for it?”

“Negative,” Diana replied solemnly. “J’onn is unconscious. I must find him help before I may rejoin the battle.”

The comm line crackled as Bruce spoke, “Keep Martian Manhunter safe, Flash and I are finished evacuating civilians, we will deal with the second ship.”

Clark rolled his shoulders back and smiled even though Batman couldn’t see him. “Good. We’ll see you soon.”

Hal and Clark met eyes and then they both set off together, flying through the only slightly smoke obscured streets as they attempted to find their attackers. They rounded a corner and Hal pointed to a bulky shape drifting through the air ahead of them. “That’s it!”

The spaceship broke free of the smoke and shot like a bullet across the sky. Hal and Clark were close behind, chasing it towards the rising sun. “We got you now, you weasel,” Hal gritted out as he gathered energy in his ring and fired.

The ship banked hard to the left to avoid his hit and then turned sharply upward to avoid a laser beam coming from Superman’s eyes. It flipped around to face them and shot a barrage of plasma blasts toward them.

Both men rolled out of the way and then readied themselves for the next attack. However, it never came. Before their eyes, the ship’s hull waivered and then disappeared with a soundless ripple.

Hal shot a green blast at the space where the ship should have been, but it simply disintegrated into the empty air. “Fuck!”

Superman looked around, confused. “What just happened?”

Hal put his hand on his hips and tilted in the air to look back down to the city below. “They just cloaked. Unless we have their cloaking frequency, we won’t be able to find them.”

Clark turned to look at him. “Cloaking? Does that mean they’re invisible?”

Hal wanted to kick something. He hated when this happened. With the Lanterns, it was slightly easier to track a cloaked ship because of the technology the Corp had on hand, but on Earth, they had no chance. “They’re gone, that’s what they are.”

Below them, in the sprawling cityscape, there was a loud explosion.

Both men began to fly down, going to the scene of the chaos, but Hal was suddenly struck by an icy thought.

He paused and floated in mid-air. Something sat uneasily in his chest, this entire mission just wasn’t adding up. Why would the aliens need to hide in the smoke when they had a cloaking device? Batman’s earlier words chose that moment to echo through his head. _It’s a distraction._

The fires spread out over the city were made to look like they were placed there for smoke cover, but they were really placed so far apart to separate the team. It was well known that the Justice League were a force to reckon with, together they were strong and indomitable but spread apart? They would be vulnerable.

“League?” he frantically asked over comms.

“Here,” Diana replied. “I’m still with Martian Manhunter, he has regained consciousness and we are going to investigate the source of the explosion.”

“Lantern? What’s wrong?” Clark asked.

Hal resumed his quick descent into the city proper. “The explosion where did it come from?”

J’onn replied, sounding groggy. “The sound came from the direction of the train station.”

Hal’s heart leapt into his throat. _No._ “Flash, come in!”

Staticky silence greeted him. Hal pushed his ring to the limits, rocketing down into the city to land in front of the blazing train station just as Clark was setting himself down in the rubble-strewn road.

_This can’t be happening._

Hal looked up to find Clark’s worried eyes scanning the wreckage. Superman activated his comm again, “Flash? Batman? What’s happening?”

More silence followed by Diana’s worried voice, “Why aren’t they answering?”

Hal watched as Clark closed his eyes and listened for his teammate’s heartbeats. Seconds later, the sharp scent of worried alpha mixed with Clark’s normal scent of sunflowers and ink hit Hal’s nose.

Clark looked up at him, a haunted look in his unearthly blue eyes. “They’re not here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's chapter 3! Stick around to find out what happened to our omegas!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! Comments and kudos are welcome <3
> 
> Come see me on my Tumblr [aboutbatman!](https://aboutbatman.tumblr.com/)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'm back! It's been a bad month tbh but I'm glad I had enough motivation to write another chapter!
> 
> **∆∆∆Trigger warnings in end notes∆∆∆ ******

The last thing Barry remembered before he awoke was Bruce’s muffled shout and a smoke-filled train station. They had finished evacuating the civilians and were waiting on word of J’onn’s condition before they made their next move, when a sleek black hovercraft had descended from the clouds and deposited six heavily armed soldiers in a wide circle around the two men.

The assailants had fired immediately, a barrage of small plasma-like blasts flinging themselves from strange guns to hit the walls and floor around Batman and Flash. Barry had moved first; using a burst of speed to put an overturned bench between them and the attackers so that they could have cover. Bruce had wasted no time in throwing batarang at the closest attacker and felling them with one hit.

Six, or five as it had been at that point, attackers against two of Earth’s greatest fighters? It had been almost laughable, or at least it had been until the small spaceship had whipped through the air behind them and fired something sharp and glinting straight at Barry. He’d been so focused on planning his next move to take down the attackers and keep Bruce safe that he hadn’t even noticed it until it was too late.

Batman had though. Barry wasn’t one to be known to falter, usually, he was the one that threw himself headfirst into a problem and dealt with the consequences later. Thus, he had felt almost powerless as he watched the small silver dart hit the weak spot between two plates of armour in the batsuit, and embed itself into Bruce’s flesh, as the man threw himself into harm’s way to cover his teammate.

Bruce’s gasp had startled him out of his frozen state and Barry had dropped the bench from where he had been propping it up for cover. He dived to catch Bruce as the man’s legs buckled from under him, and made to move him into a better position for running when a second dart had shot out from the ship and sunk itself into its original target.

The effect had been immediate. Barry felt himself weaken as the silver liquid inside the dart emptied itself into his bloodstream. He had fallen to one knee, Bruce’s heavy form still clutched in his arms, and then without a chance to fight, the darkness had taken him.

Now, Barry awoke with a pounding headache and a clenching pain deep in his belly. He groaned and rolled over on his side, ready to stand up and super-speed his way out of the situation, but he found that his powers didn’t come when called.

“What the hell?” he croaked. His mouth was dry and as he swallowed he could feel his Adam's apple push against something wrapped around his neck.

He shook his head to try and dislodge it, but whatever it was, stayed put and the shaking only managed to worsen his headache. He clenched his eyes closed and tried to abate the pain, but the throbbing only grew worse as he became startlingly aware of the other pain in his body.

He was in heat. Barry could feel it low in his stomach; a seething burn and a sticky wetness that stuck to the inside of his thighs. He shifted slightly which caused his insides to protest at the movement and he couldn't help but grunt as the fabric of his Flash costume grated over his too-sensitive flesh to spark at every overworked nerve. He could smell his heat slick, a powerful blend of pheromone cherries, rain and his usual scent of ozone that was brought on by his interactions with the speed force.

His scent was strong, suggesting it had been filling the space for some time before he had woken. Barry moved one of his legs. There was plenty of slick, but from what he could tell he wasn’t producing nearly as much as he usually would. Barry shifted his hips and focused on the empty feeling inside. It wasn’t as bad as it usually would be either, but the fiery hold of the omega hormones still thrummed under the surface of his skin; a simmering heat that was only starting to fade.

Barry sighed as his headache got worse. He was in the tail end of his heat, it was still enough to weaken him, but by whatever good luck he had managed to hold onto that day— it seemed that his metabolism had burned through the worst of it while he had been unconscious. Although, the residual embers of it still burned bright enough that if one of his alphas walked through the door, he would pounce on them like a lion on a particularly juicy piece of meat.

He clenched his eyes shut again and let out a groan. This shouldn’t be happening. He was weeks away from his next heat, he’d been on a regular cycle since the pack bonded together and they always made sure that Barry was kept safe in his nest away from any dangerous missions during it. He shivered at the frightening thought that for the first time in years he was completely vulnerable, in heat, and alone— separated from his alphas, the people that were meant to take care of him.

A small whimper came from somewhere behind him. Barry’s eyes snapped open and he silently chastised himself for getting sidetracked and not doing a security sweep of the room when he first woke up.

Barry got one of his elbows under him and slowly tried to sit up. The pain in his abdomen protested as he raised his torso up, and he had to take a moment to double over and breathe heavily through his nose until the worst of it ebbed away.

He blinked a droplet of sweat away from his eyes, aware that the smouldering heat under his skin still hadn't faded. He was frozen in a half-laying, half-sitting position due to his heat cramps stopping him in his tracks, so he tried to distract himself from the pain by studying the plain metal wall in front of him.

Barry took a deep breath and tried to focus on the lines of text written across the wall. It was a strange scratchy scrawl but the light in the cell was too low to make out anything intelligible. Another aborted whine shook Barry from his thoughts and he finally rolled over to take in the far side of the cell.

The room was dark, lit by a dim red light overhead, but Barry was still able to make out the dark shape huddled in the corner. It was a formless dark shape, completely still to the point where Barry may have mistaken it for a heap of blankets had he not heard the clear whine that came from it.

“Hello?”

The shape wriggled in the darkness as he spoke and another desperate whimper sounded from across the cell.

Barry licked his lips nervously. “Are you hurt? Do you need help?”

Again there was no answer, just another series of pitiful moans. A memory of a wounded animal rose in Barry’s mind. He’d heard similar noises before, he’d been a child then, his neighbour had set out a trap to catch an animal that had been stealing his dog’s food. The next morning Barry had awoken to the sound of a terrified raccoon trying its best to escape the cage.

He moved forward slowly on his knees, aware that in his current condition he would be little use in a fight if the person in the corner got aggressive. Really he should be looking for a way out, but if someone was injured and he left without helping them… well he didn’t want to think about that.

He got close enough to see that the person had some sort of large black cloth draped over their entire body, they also seemed to be curled into a tight ball so that their head was covered by the blanket.

He went to reach a hand out but hesitated. There was no telling how they would react to him, better to warn them first. “I’m going to touch you now, okay? I’m not going to hurt you, I just need to see where you’re injured so that I can help you.”

Barry reached forward and gripped a handful of the silky black material. He gave it an experimental tug and it slipped off the prone body beneath it. Barry sucked in a gasp as the thick omega heat scent trapped under the cape hit his nose.

He blinked in quick succession, dumbfounded at the sight of a— usually stoic— Batman curled up on the floor with a pained expression on his face. A deep red bush peeked out from under his mask and his jaw was clenched as he curled his arms in a tight hold around his midsection.

“Bruce?! What the hell? What’s wrong?” The words tumbled from Barry’s mouth before his brain could catch up. He already knew what was wrong, he could smell it in the sweet notes of roses, leather and steel on the air. An omega’s heat. Unmistakable, it cloyed to the back of his throat, making a flare of fiery want stab into his own abdomen.

Bruce turned his head slightly, just enough to fix the other omega with a white lensed stare. “Barry? You’re awake?” he said on a hitched breath.

“Yeah, I just woke up. Any idea where we are?”

Bruce swallowed slowly, clearly struggling with the action. “A ship of some sort. I haven’t seen anyone, but I smelt them out in the hallway when I first woke up— argh!” He doubled over on the ground, curling even tighter into a ball.

“Bruce!” Barry cradled his friend's head in his hands. “Hey, shh. It’s going to be alright. We’re going to get out of this.” He hooked his fingers into the grooves on the cowl, just like Bruce had shown him for emergencies, and pressed down. The release mechanism gave a low hiss and Barry was able to lift the cowl off over Batman’s head.

Glassy blue eyes blinked up at him under a mess of sweaty black hair that had fallen forward over his forehead. The blush Barry had spotted earlier travelled high onto Bruce’s cheekbones and the parts of skin that Barry’s fingertips touched were met with searing hot heat.

Bruce’s eyes fluttered closed as he helplessly pressed his face into the palm of his teammate’s hand. “Now you see me for what I truly am,” he whispered dejectedly.

Barry searched other omega’s face but Bruce kept his eyes closed. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell us?” He thought of all the times he’d felt the pack was incomplete, of all the moments where he had longed to have Bruce by his side. He had thought Bruce had been beta, that the man was reluctant to be mated into such a large pack as the only beta.

Bruce’s eyebrows arched downward and he made a noise low in his throat. “I couldn’t.” His eyes cracked open to look up at his companion.

There was pain behind those eyes, pain not linked to his current physical condition. “Why not?” Barry asked softly as he swiped a thumb over a fiery cheekbone.

Bruce looked at him for a long moment. His eyes were telling, open and vulnerable, letting Barry see a fleeting glimpse past the walls of protection that he usually had wrapped around himself. “Do you hate me?” Bruce asked quietly.

Barry reared back slightly. How could Bruce think that? This… this secret was unexpected, but it meant more than what it seemed. It signalled a new beginning. It gave him new hope that they could work things out to at least go back to how things were, to even move past what they had once been. “No!” he implored, tilting Bruce’s chin so that the man couldn’t look away from him. “Why would I hate you over this?”

“Because I lied.” He sounded numb to Barry’s ears, just a plain tone of voice like Bruce had already resigned himself to his fate. “For years I kept this secret from you, from the team, from the _pack._ How many times did I put you all in danger just because I didn’t tell you about my dynamic? Anything could have happened and you all never would have known.”

Bruce paused and let out a strangled laugh “Something _did_ happen.” He released one of the arms that clutched his waist to sweep it through the air in a wide gesture of their surrounding cell. “And I was too weak to protect you.”

Barry shook his head. “Bruce, this isn’t your fault. Whatever they used on us was tailored for omegas. There was no way you could have known!”

“And yet, I can’t help thinking if I had told them, they never would have trusted me to look out for you. As a beta, I was useful, but as an omega? I’m vulnerable.” He gestured to himself. “Case in point. They would have known you were not safe with me, they would have paired you with someone else that could have protected you better.” He groaned and shifted his legs slightly as his heat cramps twinged. “I won’t blame any of you if you want me off the team.”

“You really think of them like that? Alphas that won’t let their omega go off without a chaperone? You weren't there to babysit me, Bruce. You were there because you’re my teammate and teammates are meant to protect each other.”

“But I broke your trust. I violated all of your trusts by not telling you.” Bruce said it with such conviction, with such hurt in his voice that it made Barry’s heart ache for him.

“You’re not off the team for this, Bruce. We all love you and we’ll talk about—” Barry’s eyes flicked down over Bruce’s tortured body, “—All of this when we get home.”

Why had Bruce jumped to such conclusions? And more importantly, why had he kept such a secret in the first place? Barry needed answers, but now was not the time, nor the place for them.

He slid his hands under Bruce’s arm and attempted to roll him onto his back so he could eventually coax the man into a seated position. The large cape of the batman suit fell away further so that Barry could see more of Bruce’s form. The suit seemed mostly untouched, still scuffed in places from the fight in the train station, but most importantly the utility belt had been left fastened around Bruce’s hips. An oversight of their captors if you asked Barry.

There was a collar around Bruce’s neck, thick and metal, with an array of low blinking lights along it. Barry brought a hand up to his own neck and felt the bumps of the lights on his own collar. Was this the source of his missing powers? Maybe that’s why they didn’t take any of Batman’s gadgets away? They just assumed because they’d put a power-dampening collar on him that he was helpless.

“How are you feeling? Do you know how long you’ve been in heat?”

Bruce shook his head and bit his lip on a moan. His teeth dug into the pinkish flesh of his bottom lip and Barry was mesmerized by the way the plump lip became cherry-red under the pressure. “I’m not sure, I just woke up like this.” His glazed eyes fluttered open and closed again as the omega took deep breaths. “Barry, I’m so hot and it hurts so much…”

Barry ran a hand through the other’s sweat-soaked hair. “I know, but you’ll get through it.” He took in Bruce’s pain-filled face. Heats were hard, but the level of pain that Bruce seemed to be going through was worrying, especially since it was rare for him to ever show such pain bare on his face. “When was your last heat?”

Bruce began to curl in on himself again as another cramp wracked through his body. He clenched his teeth. “I… Don’t know.”

Barry stared at him in confusion. “What do you mean you don’t know? How could you not—”

“I’m on suppressants. I have been for a while.”

The two omegas stared at each other for a brief moment before Bruce looked away in shame. Barry swallowed the lump in his throat as a cold feeling clenched around his heart. Bruce had been abusing his suppressants.

Every omega knew how dangerous it was to be on them too long, how damaging it could be to one’s body. If Bruce couldn’t even remember his last heat then he was likely in more trouble than he was letting on. No wonder this heat was so bad, whatever was in that silver serum was clearly messing with the already fucked up hormones that the suppressants had created in his endocrine system.

“Okay.” Barry took a deep breath to stabilise his thoughts. “Okay, we can worry about that later, for now, we need to focus on working out where we are.”

He moved to a better position in front of Bruce and then took the other’s arm and encouraged it away from his stomach. Bruce shifted, moving his knees away from where they were pressed against his chest so that he could straighten out of the ball he had curled into.

Barry’s nose flared. The scent was so much stronger now, leaking out from the tight confines of the suit. How deep into his heat was Bruce if he was producing _this_ much pheromone? The batsuit didn’t allow for much breathing room if this amount of heat scent was in the air already then it meant there would be even more trapped under the suit. Barry felt his mouth begin to water. Bruce smelled… good to say the least.

Is this what he smelled like to his alphas? An irresistible scent, sweet and alluring and so, so desperate. He bit his lip as his insides clenched around the emptiness, and for a startling moment, Barry was harshly reminded that he, himself, was still in heat. It had become background noise in his swirling mind of worry for Bruce, but now it all came rushing back. The pain, the want, the _need._

Barry shook the thoughts out of his head. They needed to escape. To look for a way out and a way to contact the rest of the league. Barry looked around at the barren cell and the heavy metal door. Bruce would know what to do. Bruce would be able to find a way out. Bruce was... Bruce was in no state to plan an escape attempt.

Barry looked down at the omega on the floor. He looked debauched and he hadn't even been touched yet. He wouldn't be able to get them out like this, not in heat and especially not if he went untouched.

Bruce looked up at Barry from under his lashes. A drop of perspiration ran down from his hairline. “Barry, please,” he whispered. “I’m too hot.” A hand ran down the front of the batsuit and tugged at it uselessly. “I need it off. Please.”

“I… I,” Barry spluttered.

“ _Please_! Barry, I can’t take it anymore! Please, please, please—” He trailed off into a broken string of pleading as he closed his eyes to the demands of his own body.

Barry bit his lip in thought. When he was in the throws of the highest point of his heat, he always found clothes to be unbearable. They made the burning worse and with his heightened heat senses, every scrape of fabric over his skin made him crazy. He could only imagine what fresh hell full-scale battle armour would bring during a heat like Bruce’s.

“Okay. Just be patient, I’m not sure if I remember how to get all of this off.” Barry scooted closer and ran his fingers down the side of the Batman armour. Bruce jerked under his touch almost as if he could feel it through the layers of kevlar weave and he sighed as Barry found the catches and released them.

Barry helped him shrug off most of the upper layer of armour until he was down to his slim-fitting undershirt, then he moved his hands down to Bruce’s gleaming utility belt. He hesitated, calculating his next move, when a hand wrapped around his wrist.

Barry’s eyes snapped up to catch the heated gaze of the other omega. He licked his dry lips and swallowed slowly, “Bruce?”

Bruce didn’t speak. He just stared. Stared with a deep parched hunger plain on his face.

Barry sucked in a breath—the wrong thing to do—and clamped his mouth shut as he was hit with a concentrated dose of Bruce’s sweet heat pheromones. He whined, startled as he felt his own slick renew itself between his legs.

Bruce reacted to the whine, shifting slightly to make more room for Barry’s body.

_When did I get between Bruce’s legs?_

“Bruce…” he managed to say exactly half a second before the man in question tugged him forward by his wrist and captured his lips in a searing kiss.

Barry groaned, instantly sinking into the kiss and pressing his body down on top of the man underneath him. It was strange, so different from how his alphas kissed him, yet he liked it. It was sweet and soft, like velvet as their tongues entwined with each other. The sweet rose of Bruce’s hormones danced across his tongue as Barry tasted the other omega, and before he knew it, he was discarding the utility belt and helping his friend divest himself of his remaining armour.

Bruce’s hormones on his tongue and his scent in Barry’s nose had rekindled his heat from smouldering embers into a roaring flame. The haze descended, taking all rational thought as both men kissed and rutted against each other.

Barry didn’t remember when he’d lost his own clothes, or when he'd gotten hard, but he did know that the hard planes of Bruce’s body underneath him, and the slow slide of their cocks against each other felt good in ways that he couldn’t describe.

He took a moment to wrap a hand around both of their members, intensifying the sensations as they thrust against themselves. Bruce let out a string of gasps and moans as he threw his head back and Barry moved to kiss down Bruce’s neck. The alluring scent strengthened and he reared back slightly so that he could blink glassy eyes down at the dark patch of skin that stretched over Bruce’s engorged mating gland just above the metal collar.

Huh.

What was he supposed to do? Thoughts of his pack and alphas rushed into Barry’s mind, he brought his hand to the part of his own neck that was still uncovered by his collar. His fingertips ran over the faint scarring of his mating bites.

Bruce bucked his hips up on a particularly vigorous thrust and Barry was momentarily jousted from his thoughts as the pleasure raced through his system. He moaned, quickening the pace of his hand around them both as he slid his cock over Bruce’s.

Where had he been? Ah, yes. The gland. Barry had the inexplicable urge to lick it, so he dipped his head into the crook of Bruce’s neck and ran the flat of his tongue over the reddish flesh. Sweet hormones sparked over his tongue, making him salivate as he lapped them up.

It was an odd situation, he managed to think; that he was an omega with his teeth poised over the mating gland of one of his own kind. He wanted to bite down. He wanted to sink his teeth down into supple flesh. Wanted—against what everyone said was his nature—to bite down and _claim._

But he couldn’t. With every ounce of lucidity he had left, he managed to stay his teeth and suck a hickey into Bruce’s neck instead.

“Ah! Please!” Bruce moaned desperately.

The two men rolled their hips in sync. Barry huffed harsh breaths into Bruce’s jawline as he travelled back up to take Bruce’s lips in a greedy kiss.

Their scents mixed in the air as they both came, an intoxifying concoction that would make any alpha go crazy if they caught a whiff of it. Bruce’s body jackhammered underneath him as he finally got release for the first time in his current heat.

Barry slumped over him, the dregs of his mind slowly filtering in in the wake of the hormonal rush. “Are you okay?”

Bruce hummed and blinked tired eyes at him. “Yeah, I think so.”

Barry rolled off him and lay on his back staring up at the featureless ceiling. “Rest. We’ll need to go again soon.”

Bruce hummed again and Barry felt the barest of touches against his hand.

“Thank you.”

* * *

Barry drifted in and out of a sated sleep, only jerking to full alertness when he heard the metal scrape of the cell door being pushed open. He squinted against the light that streamed into their darkened cell and clutched a sleeping Bruce closer to his chest.

His eyes adjusted and he blinked up at the three men that had entered the cell. Or at least he assumed they were male. Whatever they were, they clearly weren’t human. They were larger than the average person and wore black armour that twisted about their bodies and tapered into sharp points at the shoulders and knees. Their skin was different shades of purple and magenta, and all had black paint smudged around their eyes and along their foreheads.

Two of the men carried long thin rifles which they pointed at the two omegas sprawled on the floor at the back of the cell. The third, a man with unnatural cyan eyes regarded them coolly as he spun a small dagger between his fingers.

One of the gunmen closest to the door sniffed the air and laughed under his breath. “Definitely omegas, Captain. Couldn’t mistake that delicious heat smell for anything else.”

The collar around Barry’s neck tingled slightly. He had felt a similar sensation once before when Hal had taken them on a peace delegation to an alien planet and given them universal translator necklaces to wear.

The captain, who Barry presumed was the one with the knife, didn’t react but the other gunman leered. “I love me some bitches in heat. Remember the time we went snatching in Gaila IV? Caught us some fine omegas we did.”

Barry felt his muscles tighten in fear. Bruce was limp in his arms, still passed out after endless hours of tempering his heat. Barry himself was still weak from his own. If things got violent he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to defend them both.

An insidious smile spread across the first gunman’s face. “Oh _I_ remember. How could I forget? They cried so pretty when we took them, and they fetched a fair price.”

The two guards chuckled together. “Not to mention those little mewls they made when we fuc—”

“Who are you?” Barry looked straight at the leader with his head held as high as he could keep it.

The knife stilled in his large hands. “I am the captain.”

Barry swallowed past the lump in his throat. “So we are on a ship?”

The man took one step forward and Barry couldn’t help but press as close to the wall as possible. The captain’s scent hit his nose, it was alien to him, a strange mix of pheromones that smelled distinctly alpha yet Barry had no hope in placing.

The alien alpha stared at him with his piercing eyes for a moment before he spoke again. “We had not known the famed Justice League of Earth harboured _two_ omegas. I must admit, it caused some excitement among my crew when he...” The captain’s eyes trailed over Bruce’s vulnerable form as if viewing him as a prize. “...Reacted with our heat dart.”

Barry shifted his arms to try and hide as much of Bruce as possible from view. “What do you want with us?”

The captain smiled with sharp teeth. “I am a businessman. I hunt down things of value, things people want, and then I sell it to them.” He squatted to their level and reached forward with the point of his knife to trail it along one of Barry’s legs. “And an omega with your status and fame— is _very_ valuable.”

Barry rolled his shoulders back and attempted to look tough. “The Justice League has dealt with bigger threats than pirates. They won’t let you away with this. They’ll find us.”

The captain stood and pocketed his dagger. “Maybe so. But we will be long gone by then.” He turned away to face one of his gunmen. “Make sure they’re fed. I have other business to attend to.”

“Aye, captain,” the guard said. He raked his gaze over the omegas with a hunger in his eyes. “But first, I think I’ll sample what our newest catch has to offer.”

The guard went to lunge toward them but the captain caught him by the throat and pressed him up against the wall. “Did I say you could touch the fucking merchandise?” He let go roughly and stepped back to regard him. “Do you know what buyer I have lined up for these two?! They _better_ be in mint condition by the time we reach the empire, or I’ll have your head.”

The guard spluttered an apology and left the room in a hurry. The other gunman filed out after him. The captain paused in the doorway, turning to study Barry with a single cyan eye before shutting the door behind him and plunging them back into the dimness of their cell.

Barry let out a breath. His eyes flickered over to where Bruce’s utility belt lay discarded on the metal floor and he steeled his resolve. He needed to get them out of there before the ship arrived at its destination. Their lives depended on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **∆∆∆Threats of sexual assault∆∆∆ ******
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Tell me what you think :P
> 
> So my friend made some 'Silver Secrets' inspired memes that I think everyone should take a look at because they're great! See them [here!](https://rednightdeer.tumblr.com/post/637931601708400640/show-chapter-archive)


	5. Chapter 5

“Are you sure you’re okay to do this?”

Bruce gave him a stern look that brooked no arguing. “I’m not letting you go out there alone, Barry.”

Barry sighed and gave Bruce another once over with his eyes. The man looked wrecked. Dark smudges rested under his eyes and his form was slouched in exhaustion. They’d managed to wash with the bowl of water that had been left for them, but heat scent still clung to them both even though Bruce’s heat had ended just under a day ago and Barry’s two days before that.

He scrubbed a hand over his face, “There’s nothing I can say to make you stay is there?”

Bruce pushed himself off the wall where he had been leaning and reached down to snag his utility belt off of the floor.

“No, there isn’t. Besides, what’s your grand plan on getting this door open without my help?”

“Well, I...uh…”

“Exactly.” Bruce waltzed past him and knelt by the electronic lock. He took a device out of a belt pouch and started working.

Barry sighed and reached to pull up the hood of the Flash uniform. Not that he needed to. No doubt anyone would even know who Barry Allen was if he told them, and many of them had already seen his face as they came and went from the cell to give them food and water. But it was a force of habit, having his mask on made him feel shielded somewhat, as if he was an unstoppable speedster again rather than a powerless omega that was lightyears from home.

The lock gave a mechanical groan as it opened and Bruce put his hand up to the door to stop it swinging open. He looked back at Barry, “You remember the moves I showed you a while ago?”

Barry nodded.

“Good. Remember we need to be as undetectable as possible. We can’t risk them finding us out.” Bruce cracked open the door and pulled a small gadget out of his belt, then he slid it into the small gap and into the hallway beyond.

Barry squatted beside him and tried to see what he was doing over his shoulder. “What is that? Some sort of weapon?”

Bruce gave a small grunt that almost sounded like a laugh. “No. It’s a mirror,” he whispered. “Not everything has to be high-tech you know.”

Barry shrugged, slightly embarrassed that he had managed to misidentify a mirror. “I was expecting some fancy Waynetech gadget that could turn us invisible. Didn’t know the great ‘Dark Knight’ would use something as low-tech as a mirror.”

Bruce stiffened and motioned for him to shush. He held up two fingers then pulled his cowl on over his head and moved silently into the hallway.

Barry followed closely behind in time to see Batman creep up behind a guard and sweep him into a neck hold. Bruce brought his hand up to his other fist and pulled, cutting off the air to the alien and rendering them unconscious in seconds. He brought the alien down close to the floor and lay them down as silently as possible.

Barry moved further down the row of cells toward the second guard that stood facing away from him. His heart pounded in his chest, he had only done this a handful of times and never at regular speed. He took a deep breath and swept his arm forward to hook around the guard’s neck.

The woman started struggling immediately, kicking back and trying to free herself from Barry’s grip. Barry’s heart leapt into his throat, aware that too much noise could end this mission before it had begun. He pressed harder on the alien’s windpipe with his forearm, bringing his other hand forward up to help increase pressure like he had watched Bruce do.

The guard thrashed more violently, kicking bruises into Barry’s shins as he held her tight. Eventually, the alien let out a final gurgle and went limp in Barry’s arms— much to his relief. He gently laid her down on the floor and looked up to find Bruce watching him with an amused quirk to his lips.

“Rusty,” was all the other omega said as he moved past them and crept into the hallway that connected the brig to the rest of the ship.

Barry huffed incredulously and followed him. “Well, if I had my powers that would have been over a lot quicker!”

“Speed isn’t always the most desirable option.” Bruce looked back at him and smirked.

It took a few seconds for his words to sink in. Barry squawked indignantly. “You certainly weren’t complaining yesterday when I—”

A hand clapped over his mouth and Bruce’s body pressed up against his as he crowded them both into a small alcove between two walls. Seconds later a beta crewmember walked past as they went about their work duties.

They both listened to the footsteps echo down the hallway and neither men dared move until they had faded out of hearing range. Bruce visibly relaxed as he took his hand away and stepped back out of their hiding spot.

“Remind me what we’re looking for?” Barry asked.

“A computer terminal capable of transmitting long-range signals.” Bruce motioned for Barry to keep close to the wall as they crept forward.

“So we can contact the League, yeah, I got that part, but remind me how two humans are supposed to know how to use this technology.” Barry remembered the strange alien words written across the walls of their cell. He’d thought of the plan only a few days ago when his own heat had ended and he’d had time to think between the lulls of Bruce’s heat.

When Bruce’s heat had broken and the man had sufficiently rested, Barry had told him his idea— faced with staying in their cell until they arrived at their dreaded destination, and with their time rapidly running out, they had both decided Barry’s idea was better than none. The plan was to get a message to the rest of the Justice League, but now that they were actually trying to execute it, he was suddenly able to see its many flaws.

Bruce peeked around a corner before darting across the crossroads and into a new corridor. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of it,” he whispered after a few moments of silence.

“How do you know how to use alien technology?”

Bruce stopped in his tracks to look back and give him a sly glance. “Because I’m Batman.”

Barry suppressed a groan. At least Bruce had retained his strange sense of humour after that last few days of hell. All things considered, Bruce seemed to be recovering from his freak heat. But they still had a serious conversation ahead of them and Barry wasn’t looking forward to trying to sort out the mess that explaining everything to the others would be.

Barry smiled back. “Good enough for me.”

They continued to weave through more maze-like hallways, Barry hoping that the other omega would remember their way back to the cell, until Bruce finally slowed and pointed to a door on the left of the hallway. “In there.”

It looked mostly the same as the others they had passed on the way; metal, with a sprawl of lettering and symbols across one of its panels. “How do you know?”

Bruce nodded at one of the symbols on the door. “Hal let me look at the Lantern database. I committed some of the universally used text and symbols to memory, that symbol with the square and three circles means the door leads to an engineering deck. We should be able to find a suitable computer interface there.”

Barry swept a hand forward in a false display of chivalry. “Lead the way—”

The door swooshed open with a mechanical whirr and three rowdy workers stumbled out in throws of laughter. They clapped each other on the back, too involved in what their friends were saying to notice the two omegas as they dived into an adjacent room.

Now it was Barry’s turn to press Bruce up against the wall as they listened to the voices chatter on the other side of the door. He held Bruce tightly, able to feel the other’s thundering heartbeat through their touching chests as he breathed heavily. Bruce had frozen at the sight of the alphas in the hallway. If Barry hadn’t pulled him into the nearest room then they could have been spotted.

Barry couldn’t miss the tremor that ran through his friend.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Bruce’s jaw clenched and he nodded his head jerkily. “Yeah. Yes, I’m fine.” His eyes darted around the new corridor they were in, then to the door that separated them from the pirates. “We need to move.”

Barry let go of him and stepped back to regard the new area of the ship he had shoved them into. It was the same metal corridors, only slightly more shabby and less well-lit. The corridor was small and dead-ended into two separate doors.

Barry crept up to the first on light feet and attempted to activate the opening mechanism. He tapped at the small touchpad mounted to the wall but the door wouldn’t budge. Bruce crossed over to the second door and fiddled with its control panel.

It slid open smoothly to reveal a large dim room. The two omegas gave each other a wary look before slipping inside. Large bulbous lamps hung from the ceiling at uneven intervals, casting deep shadows from where the light hit at angles between the various counters, tables and machinery that were positioned around the room. Rows of a dry looking vegetable were tied in long lines and hooked to the wall, and jars and containers of various types of food lined every available surface.

At the far end of the room was another door.

“There.” Bruce took a step forward just as the door whooshed open and two crewmates stomped inside. He ducked and rolled, positioning himself out of sight behind a large sack of grain stacked against one of the counters. Barry barely had time to scramble behind a machine that vaguely looked like an oven as the aliens swept into the room.

The two aliens—a short stubby one and a large blocky one with crooked teeth—dragged a large container of purple food over to the far side of the room. The short one emptied a few of the vegetables into a sink of water while the large one took a curved knife from the wall and sat on a low stool to begin peeling them.

Barry bit the inside of his lip as he looked between the aliens and Bruce on the other side of the room. Bruce’s eyes flicked to him and he jerked his head toward the door. Barry nodded and shifted into a crouch. He inched his way out of his hiding spot and crept as quietly as he could toward the exit.

The other omega did the same, albeit with much more stealth, as he made his way between hiding spots and into the open doorway. Barry watched him as he moved; Bruce was like a living shadow, blending into the darkness as if he belonged to it.

Barry just managed to duck under a table as the short alien stopped scrubbing at the vegetables and turned around to face his companion. “Qua’rk, do you smell that? Smells like—”

The bigger alien paid them no heed as he carried on peeling the purple vegetable. “Probably one of the minders moping about again. They always reek of ‘megas when they come back from feeding them. Stink up the whole ship, they do.”

The squat alien scrunched up their face. “Are you sure? Smell fresher than usual, almost like—ack!”

They gave a yelp as the large one thumped them on the back.

“Quit yer babblin’. Back to work, I tell ye. I swear those ‘uns need to hose themselves off before they leave the brig. Gonna send the whole ship mad with ‘mega scent they will.”

The short one turned back to the basin, resuming their washing as they grumbled on. Bruce stared at them a moment longer before gesturing Barry over to him.

Barry scuttled from under the table and into the open doorway beside Bruce. He held his breath the entire way down the next corridor and only let it out when Bruce led him into a deck access shoot that contained a ladder. “Fuck. That was too close,” he whispered.

Bruce’s hand hesitated near his face for a moment before Bruce settled it on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

Barry looked into the white lenses of the Batman cowl. He could picture exactly how blue Bruce’s eyes would be under it. “Yeah. I think so.”

Bruce looked like he was about to say something but he closed his mouth and nodded. After a few seconds, he took his hand from Barry’s shoulder and grabbed onto a rung of the ladder that led down to a lower deck. “Good. We need to keep moving before someone else comes.”

Barry followed him down the ladder and both men made sure the coast was clear before they crawled out at the other end. The new corridor split into three separate sections, each leading in a different direction. Barry pointed down the third one. “That way leads back towards the direction of the engineering deck. Maybe we could find another way in?”

“Good idea. Keep an eye out for the symbol I showed you earlier.”

They began walking again, staying close to walls and hiding in alcoves when they came too close to one of the crewmates. A door opened somewhere in the maze of corridors behind them and both men broke into a run.

Barry was horribly aware of the sound of each footstep. The heavy-duty material of his running shoes was made for surviving G-force rather than for stealth because travelling at such high speeds that most other beings couldn’t perceive him meant that he usually didn’t have to worry about the amount of noise that he was making.

Ahead of him, Bruce skidded to a halt and pressed himself against the wall. He held a finger to his lips and signalled for Barry to look around the corner. Barry crept forward, peeking his head past the wall just enough to see the door with the engineering symbol at the end of the long hallway.

“That’s it!” he said.

Bruce pressed up behind him, head just barely above his shoulder as he spoke, “Look closer.”

The corridor was lengthy, with doors on either side of it— one door was open and voices filtered out into the walkway. “Shit. How are we supposed to get past them?”

“Very carefully and as quickly as possible.” Bruce braced himself. “Don’t stop unless one of them comes out, they sound distracted enough not to notice us. Are you ready?”

Barry looked down the long stretch of corridor. This was all taking so long. Normally he would have been able to clear one side of the ship to the other in less than a second. But now every step he took was agonisingly slow as if wading through quicksand. Not for the first time that week he cursed the power-inhibitor collar around his neck. He should already be at the other end of the blasted corridor, not staring at it and having to worry about how he would get down it without being seen.

“Let’s go.”

He ran, for the first time in years without his powers, managing to make it to the end of the hallway before Bruce. To his relief, the door to engineering opened upon his arrival in front of it and he was able to slip inside without incident. He ducked behind a control panel and made room for Bruce beside him.

“How are you holding up?” he asked with concern. Bruce was panting and a small blush painted itself across his visible cheeks. He usually wasn’t like this, as Batman he was known for pushing himself to the limit, meeting—and sometimes surpassing—his meta teammates in battle.

But now a simple run had tired him. It looked like his heat had taken a higher toll on him than he had let on, but of course, that was normal Bruce fashion to keep any perceived weakness to himself.

“I’m fine,” Bruce grunted. “We shouldn’t be focusing on me. Not when we still need to find a computer.”

“Won’t any of these do?” Barry looked around the engineering deck. It consisted of three floors, with a large cutout in the middle so that people could see onto the other decks. High-tech equipment filled every nook and cranny in the room and screens lined the walls to display various scientific readings.

“We need something that connects to the ship's long-range sensors. We’ve been travelling for days and our only hope of getting a signal to Earth is if we can send a message on the Justice League’s emergency frequency,” Bruce replied.

Barry looked around. Most of the computers and machines looked to be specialised, many of them designed to control or monitor the engines and other ship systems.

“What about that one?” He pointed to a large console on their floor, it was embedded directly into the wall and had multiple screens displaying various readouts.

“Let’s try it.” Bruce crouched and checked for any wayward eyes before making his way over to the computer. Barry followed closely, wary of the alien engineers that mulled about carrying out their duties.

The computer was along a back wall, in a position where the two men would be able to use it without being seen. However, if any of the workers came over to this side of the deck they would be spotted instantly.

Bruce’s fingers flew across the screen as soon as they got to it. “Keep look-out. We can’t afford to be seen.”

Barry nodded shakily and scanned the area around them. His heart beat furiously in his chest; the next few moments would decide their fate.

“Is it working?” he asked in a low voice.

Bruce hummed. “Some of the controls are foreign to me but I—”

He cut off, his fingers impossibly getting faster as he tapped the screen.

Barry spared a glance over at him. “Is it working?”

The computer screen changed, waves and lines appearing as Bruce keyed in the exact frequency he wanted. His shoulders sagged in what Barry assumed was relief. “I got it.”

Barry let some of the tension bleed out of his own tensed muscles, they weren't out of the woods yet, but he felt better for knowing they’d sent out the call for help. “Now what?”

Bruce looked at him. He smirked. “Now, we wait.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter! This one originally didn't exist as I had already written the next chapter, but then I thought this one might be good to explain things. So yeah, the next chapter is written so I will probably update next Friday!
> 
> Comments and kudos are welcome! <3
> 
> Come see me on my Tumblr [aboutbatman!](https://aboutbatman.tumblr.com/)


	6. Chapter 6

The engines of the Javelin rattle underneath the floor as they propel the ship forward at neck-breaking speeds. Clark can feel the vibrations running through his fingers as he grips onto the armrest of his seat.

“We got it.”

Clark perks up in his chair and zones back into the conversation at the helm of the ship. “What’s happening?”

Hal turns slightly in his chair to give him a hopeful look. “We caught the signal again.” He turns back to the control console where he’s rigged his green lantern ring into the long-range sensors. “The nebula where we lost them slowed them down by the looks of it. We’re closer than before.”

Clark undoes his seatbelt and walks to the front of the jet so that he can look out of the windows. Space stretches out in front of him. Distant stars twinkle and planets twirl around them in a lazy river of gravity. The tail end of the purple nebula they just exited whips around to the side in a spiral until it fades off into the distance and out of sight.

Clark looks past it all, using his heightened vision to spy the small grouping of ships as they disappear behind a moon. “I see them.”

He smells the spike of anticipation in their scents as the rest of his pack react to the information. It’s a welcome change from the torrid mix off worry and fear they’ve all been putting off for the last week. After Barry and Bruce were taken, the team spent days trying to piece together what had happened and who had taken them— to no avail.

It had been like reaching out to touch something and finding that your arm was missing. Barry was their omega; without him, their pack felt empty and worthless. He left an empty space that they could feel every time they caught his still-lingering scent in the Watchtower.

And that was just the state of their pack. The team was in worse shape. Barry was a key member of the Justice League, but Bruce was one of its leaders. His absence was unmissable, the constant brooding figure at their back suddenly missing, and the advice and leadership that he freely gave to them was sorely missed as they desperately tried to find the two men.

Clark clenched his fists together. Soon they would find their stolen teammates. Soon he would have his omega back in his arms. A pang of longing sprung deep in his heart. He loved Barry… but he also loved Bruce too. Many times he wished that the beta would finally give in and join their pack. Maybe he should talk to the other alphas about asking him to join again when they got Bruce and Barry back.

J’onn’s hands fly across the screens embedded into the arms of his chair. “The sensors have identified three ships approximately five minutes away at full speed.”

Diana takes hold of the control column and takes the Javelin out of autopilot. “I will get us close enough to scan for their life signs. The rest of our plan is still in effect, yes?”

Clark nodded. “Me and J’onn will retrieve Barry and Bruce while you and Green Lantern distract the other ships.”

Hal pried his ring out of the console interface and slipped it back onto his finger. Green light enveloped him and his Green Lantern uniform formed over his clothes. He cracked his knuckles and gave the others a tight grin. “Let’s go whoop some pirate ass.”

“They have noticed us. They are arming their weapons and coming about,” Diana said urgently.

Hal floated into the airlock and punched in the code to bring down the sealant door. “I’ll try and keep them off you until you find them,” he said before the door shut and he was released into space.

Clark watched a streak of green rush forward and start firing at the lead ship as it counter-attacked with bolts of purple plasma. At the cockpit, Wonder Woman armed their own torpedoes and began firing defensive hits that wouldn't jeopardize Bruce or Barry’s safety.

Clark tried to listen for their heartbeats, but something on the alien ships was making it hard to distinguish them in the jumble of ships ahead. He definitely knew they were there, but he couldn’t make out which of the ships in the small fleet they were on. “Martian Manhunter, can you sense their thoughts?”

J’onn pressed his index and middle fingers to his forehead in concentration. His eyes glowed an eerie red and after a few moments he spoke, “There is something distorting my reach. Everything is warped, I cannot— wait.” He paused, leaving the other two alphas in worried silence.

Clark felt his heartbeat thunder in his chest, out of the corner of his eye he saw Diana shift in her seat nervously as she manoeuvred the ship through the plasma fire. Outside the green blasts from Hal’s ring carried on.

J’onn spoke again, breaking the tense atmosphere inside the Javelin, “I sense them. I cannot read any thoughts, but I have pinpointed them inside the largest of the three ships.”

He stood from his seat in a fluid motion and gave Clark a serious red-eyed stare. “You are ready?”

Clark made sure he had his comm and then attached a pouch containing breathing apparatus around his waist. He looked up to J’onn’s solemn stare. “Ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s get them.”

They stepped into the airlock together, J’onn opting to remain with Superman rather than phasing, and with the press of a button they were both being sucked out into space. Clark technically needed oxygen to survive, but due to his Kryptonian physiology and the yellow sun that was burning in the solar system they were currently in, he could hold his breath for a prolonged amount of time.

Twin plasma blasts shot towards them, only narrowly missing them as Diana blew up the plasma charges before they could hit their targets. “Follow the Javelin, I’ll try and clear a path for you to get closer,” she said over comms.

The jet shot forward, firing a volley of ammunition at the three approaching alien ships. Superman and Martian Manhunter stayed in her wake, only breaking away when they got close enough to the main ship. It was the same one they’d seen in Johannesburg, dark and imposing with orange and purple accents, and for a moment the sight of it made Clark hopeful. The last week had been hell, searching fruitlessly until a weak distress beacon had—against all odds—come over the Justice League secure emergency line. But now the ship that haunted his dreams was so close, _they_ were so close, that it reinvigorated Clark’s determination.

“Superman,” J’onn said. “I am going to phase inside the ship and its forcefield, and open an airlock from the inside. Be prepared to enter, once I open it and lower the shields, they will know they have intruders onboard.”

Clark nodded. “Go, I’ll cover you.”

J’onn weaved in and out of the fire, Clark protecting him with blasts of his laser vision until he got to the hull off the largest ship. He placed a green hand on it and seconds later he was slipping through the metal as if it were sand.

Clark twisted out of the way as some of the ship’s guns swivelled to aim at him. He dived away from the hull, doing a 180-degree turn just in time to blow up two plasma torpedoes with his laser vision as they tailed the Javelin.

Hal’s voice rang out in his ear. “Welcome to the party, Supes!” Green streaked in front of his vision and Hal threw up a wall construct to shield them from a small spray plasma charges. “On your left, you’ll see a big fuckin spaceship! And if you look to your right, you’ll see—shit!”

They broke away from each other, both men trying to get away from the plasma torpedo as it barreled toward them. Clark could probably take the hit, but the essential equipment slung around his waist was another story. He flew forward with speed, able to hear the sizzling of the raw energy behind him as the plasma torpedo followed him on some sort of guiding system. Clark pressed forward with more speed, pulling up at the last second before he hit one of the smaller spaceships. The torpedo travelled onward, breaking apart in a fabulous display of purple light as it erupted against the ship’s shield.

“Hey, Supes!” Hal called. “I think that’s your cue.”

Clark spun at his teammate’s warning in time to see one of the smaller airlock ports on the large ship open. “Got it,” he said over comms before shooting towards it and slipping inside.

As expected, J’onn was waiting for him. The Martian pressed a few buttons and the lock closed behind him. “We must work fast. A security detail is likely on their way as we speak.”

Clark looked around the loading bay they were currently in. Large crates were stacked on top of each other and canisters of unknown substances lined the walls. Nearly every corner was packed full of valuables that the pirates had likely stolen. “Can you sense where they are?”

J’onn shook his head as they both crept out of the storage bay and into a deserted corridor. “No, they are still removed from me, but I can sense they are on this ship, just not where.”

Clark closed his eyes to concentrate and tried to hone in on their heartbeats but it was still a jumble. All he could hear was the high-pitched screech of the alien engines permeating the ambience of the ship as he tried to distinguish noises. “I’m having trouble too.”

J’onn’s hand rose into the air in warning and they both jumped back from a crossroad in corridors to press themselves into an alcove. A group of aliens walked past with long guns clutched in their hands. The aliens walked with purpose toward the loading bay they had just come from, so intent on their destination that they totally missed the two men hiding in the alcove as they narrowly passed by.

The smell hit Clark like a tonne of bricks. Cherries, rain, ozone— all underlaid by a stale smell of heat. Barry’s scent. Barry’s scent on the clothes of some foreign alpha.

J’onn put a hand on Clark’s arm to stop him from growling, likely able to sense his unease.

⚞I smelled it too. Can you follow the scent to its source?⚟ he conveyed through a mind link.

⚞I can try.⚟

Clark’s nose was sharper than anyone else’s on Earth. He tilted his head back slightly and concentrated on Barry’s scent as it weaved through the ship. There were other scents too, likely of crew or other victims, but another slightly stale heat scent stood out to him. The staleness meant it was old, the scent likely spread across the ship by whoever had come into contact with them while it was still fresh. The other heat scent tarnished a rather nice omega scent of roses, steel and leather, but the strange part was that it was almost woven into Barry’s scent as if they led to the same place.

⚞I have him. Near the bottom of the ship, not too far from here.⚟ Clark said.

J’onn checked that the pirates were gone before stepping out from their hiding spot. ⚞I shall distract them and secure the airlock. It will draw suspicion away from where they are being held.⚟

Clark nodded in affirmation and then turned and sped at super-speed towards the source of the scent. He was fast, fast enough that the guards stationed outside the holding cells stood no chance as he knocked them unconscious.

He dragged their bodies into an empty cell and then regarded the other cells. There were twelve doors in total, six on each side of the narrow corridor of the brig, but only one of the cells at the end had heartbeats coming from it.

He walked closer on steady feet, sure that the heartbeats belonged to his friends as he got closer and was able to hear past the ship’s strange engines. He reached a hand out and took hold of the door handle. Thoughts raced through his mind. What would he find in there? Why had that soldier had Barry’s scent on him? If he had hurt him, then Clark would make them pay.

Superman ripped the door away from its frame as if it was made of paper. The cell was dark inside, lit by a single red strip light bolted to the ceiling. His eyes adjusted quickly, allowing him to see the two men huddled together in the far corner. Milliseconds after his eyes adjusted, the signal from his nose hit his brain.

Omega.

 _His_ omega.

“Flash!” Clark stumbled forward, intending to scoop Barry into his arms, but he halted when the huddle moved and Barry brought his hand up.

“Stop! Superman, just I—” he sounded relieved, yet something was clearly making him anxious at the same time.

Clark froze in his tracks, confusion plain on his face. Barry was pressed into the corner with a black blanket thrown over him, now that he was closer, Clark could see that the other inhabitant of the cell was huddled partially under the blanket and partially in Barry’s arms. He sniffed the air and surmised it was the other omega, the one that smelled like roses.

Poor thing probably had no idea what was going on, at least Barry had experience with aliens and kidnapping, but to a normal civilian this must be a terrifying experience. Barry was good to protect them, perhaps a foreign alpha like Clark barging in on them wasn’t the best idea.

Clark took a few footsteps backwards and crouched down to seem less imposing. “Everything is going to be alright, you’re safe now,” he said softly in a reassuring voice. The second omega didn’t turn their head toward them, instead, they just continued to clutch to Barry.

Barry ducked his head, whispering in low tones into the other’s ear. Clark purposely didn’t listen in, choosing to give the omegas a modicum of privacy. He reached down to the pouch around his waist and froze as horror dawned on him; Bruce wasn’t here.

He hadn’t caught wind of Bruce’s beta scent at all, and he’d been so distracted with his alpha instincts when he smelled Barry’s scent on the alien pirate, that it had caused a tunnel vision until he found his omega. But now with Barry seemingly safe in front of him, his instincts had finally stopped clouding his mind enough to allow him to think of other things. Including the fact that Bruce was still missing and that he’d only brought two breathing masks for the brief transport into the Javelin.

“Flash,” Clark said urgently. “Do you know where Batman is? I haven’t been able to find him.” Best case scenario, Bruce had simply been separated from Barry because of their differing designations. Worst case scenario, Batman had either been dumped at another location or—Clark could barely think it without wanting to vomit—been killed.

Barry looked up at him with a serious look in his eyes. “He’s fine. I just need you to be calm about this.”

Clark shook his head in confusion. “What do you mean? Where is he?”

Barry studied his face. “I need you to promise not to make this into a big deal right now, okay? Whatever happens, we can all talk about it later. But right now we have to get him to safety.”

Him? The second omega? The more his mate talked, the more confused Clark became. “Okay. I promise.” When Barry made no move to tell him where their missing teammate was, Clark asked, “Can you tell me where he is? I can go and get him.”

The omega ducked his head again to speak reassuring words to the man in his arms. He looked back up at Clark and sighed. “He’s right here.”

Barry unwound his arms from around the other omega and threw the blanket, or more accurately a cape, away from them. Clark sucked in a shocked breath as Bruce turned his face toward him and looked at him with tired eyes.

“Hello, Clark.”

For a moment Clark couldn’t speak. What his eyes and nose were telling him wasn’t adding up and he practically choked on his own words as he tried to form them. “B-Bruce?!”

Bruce tensed and his jaw tightened. He brought his head up to look at Clark head-on. “Yes, it’s me. Do we have a problem?”

Clark blinked at him as his mind struggled to comprehend what was happening. Bruce looked so tense and he had a tremor running through his body, almost as if he was scared. “No? I just don’t—”

“We should leave.” Barry stood, gripping onto Bruce’s bicep to help the other man stand.

Clark jumped forward as Bruce stumbled on weak legs and nearly fell, but Bruce snatched his arm away from him and rolled his shoulders back like a bird ruffling its feathers in offence. “I can do it myself. Just because you know what I am doesn't mean I need your help, _alpha,”_ he snapped.

It was the same old Bruce, with his biting words and need for independence, but it was increasingly obvious that Clark couldn’t ignore that the man he’d known for years as a beta was actually an omega. Now that he was up and moving, Bruce’s sweet scent filled Clark’s nose and made him want to clutch him to his chest and protect him. “What did they do to you? Are you both okay?”

Barry stretched his limbs out and pointed at a collar around his neck. “We’re fine… just a little worn out,” he said cryptically. “They did put inhibitor collars on us though, so if you could use some of that super-strength of yours to get it off that would be great!”

Clark nodded as he handed them their oxygen masks. He reached up and snapped off the collar around Barry’s neck. He couldn’t hold back anymore, he swept Barry into his arms and hugged him close.

Barry’s arms wrapped around him and his body practically melted into Clark’s as the stress and worry of the last few days left his body in the presence of his alpha. “Clark,” he breathed as he closed his eyes and scented along Superman’s jaw. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Clark drew him closer. “I was so worried about you. At first, when we couldn’t find you I… I was worried we wouldn’t get to either of you in time.” He buried his nose into his omega’s neck and drew in a breath of fresh omega scent. A thought struck him and he drew away from the embrace in panic. “Earlier, when we broke onto the ship, I smelled your scent on one of the guards.” There was no easy way to say this other than to outright ask. “Your heat scent.”

“The serum that they used to knock us out also confirmed our dynamic by sending us into heat,” Bruce said as if he was reading it off of a report rather than recounting something horrible that had happened to him.

Sending an omega into heat without their consent was unthinkable, even messing with a heat’s careful balance was considered taboo. For these aliens to have used a heat against an omega like that… Clark had to consciously reign in his anger before it showed outwardly.

Bruce tensed and watched him warily as Clark reached forward to snap his collar off. He couldn’t help but notice the ring of hickeys that extended around Bruce’s mating gland. He thanked Rao that there was no bite, but took in a deep breath of air to confirm that Bruce’s scent was still unmated. He looked between the two omegas and thought back to the alpha guard with both of their heat scents on his clothes and his heartbeat thundered in his chest in outrage. “They didn’t… touch you, did they?”

Barry could see where this line of thought was leading and he jumped forward to but his hand on Clark’s chest. “No!” He looked at Bruce’s defensive stance and sighed. “Some of them tried but the captain stopped them. He wanted us to be kept untouched for wherever they were taking us.”

Clark looked into Barry’s wide eyes and realised he was pleading with him not to escalate things further. He looked to Bruce and found the man in a defensive stance, fear in his eyes as he looked at an alpha Superman that was clearly agitated and ready to get violent.

Clark dropped his shoulders down immediately with a pang of regret and tried to make himself look smaller and less threatening to the scared omega. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get angry.” He ran a hand through his hair.

How had he managed to fuck this up? He was here to rescue his mate and one of his best friends, and somehow he’d managed to make one of them afraid by acting like a stereotypical territorial alpha.

Not that this situation wasn’t fucked up already. He’d thought for years that Bruce was a beta. To learn that one of his close friends had been too distrustful of them to tell them his true designation hurt. What was it? Was he not comfortable? Was Bruce scared of… alphas?

Barry ran a hand up his arm and squeezed his shoulder. “It’s all good. If any of them had actually tried to do anything I would have acted the same.”

Clark placed his hand over Barry’s. “I’m just glad you’re both safe. I don’t know what I’d— any of us would have done if they’d hurt either of you.” He looked from his mate to Bruce, hoping that the new omega would see the earnest truth in his eyes.

Barry fastened his breathing mask on with a click and a hiss and turned to Batman. “Are we ready?”

Bruce nodded and put on his own mask. “Yes.” He gave Barry a brief smile before returning his watchful eyes to the alpha in the room. “Let’s go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter! Hope you enjoyed the rescue!

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Comments and kudos are welcome <3
> 
> Come see me on my Tumblr [aboutbatman!](https://aboutbatman.tumblr.com/)


End file.
